“Who told you this would be easy?” she said, eyes glittering like sea-wet stones. A flush, gentle as rain, rose in her cheeks.
Nobody, nobody, the voice in his head clammered, I’m sorry, sorry, my love, it is blessed, it must be; I cannot ever deny love.
At that moment he met her eyes and it occured to him that we live only in moments, arranged as it happens. Someday we shall live entirely in nothing but a single kiss.
–Kyle Parrish
Last week we went to Abruzzo to visit grandparents of Lorenzo. I love the region a lot… inside green nature crystal rivers coming down from the beautiful high mountains…and medieval hilltowns. On the highway you can see many of them from distance. They’re very impressive.
Abruzzo holds some of Italy’s best-preserved medieval and Renaissance hill towns. The abrupt decline of Abruzzo’s agricultural economy in the early to mid-20th century saved some of the region’s most beautiful hill towns from the onslaught of modern development. Many lie entirely within regional and national parks so their preservation is all but guaranteed. Among the most well preserved are Castel del Monte (AQ) and Santo Stefano di Sessanio, which lie in the Gran Sasso National Park on the edge of the high plain of Campo Imperatore and nestled beneath the Apennines’ highest peaks; both hill towns, which were ruled by the Medicis for over a century-and-a-half, have relatively little tourism. Between the two towns sits Rocca di Calascio, the ruin of an ancient fortress popular with film makers. Also within the Gran Sasso National Park is Castelli, an ancient pottery center whose artisans produced ceramics for most of the royal houses of Europe. Although still home to many artisans, Castelli has a modest tourist trade.
Other medieval hill towns located fully within Abruzzo’s park system are Pacentro in the Parco Nazionale della Majella and Pescasseroli in the Parco Nazionale d’Abruzzo. Pacentro, which features a 14th century castle with two intact towers, has been little touched by modernization and is also known for being the origin village of the grandfathers of the entertainers Madonna and Dean Martin.
Increased shipping traffic through the narrow Bosporus Straits has heightened fears of a major accident that could have serious environmental consequences and endanger the health of the 12 million residents of Istanbul that live on either side of the Straits. The Straits have witnessed an increase in shipping traffic since the end of the Cold War to the point that around 50,000 vessels per year (nearly one every 10 minutes) now pass through them. Around one-tenth of these are crude oil or liquefied natural gas tankers. This increased congestion has led to a growing number of accidents; between 1988 and 1992, there were 155 collisions in the Straits. In January 2001, work began on building a comprehensive radar and vessel control system for the waterway.
Swimming in the crystal water of Oludeniz was amazing. It was like swimming in an aquarium. The beach…lt’s the most beautiful beach l’ve ever seen
Dalyan canal through which water circulates between the Mediterranean and Köyceğiz Lake winds its way to the sea, via a small network of lakes and waterways.
Through the rustling reed beds rising between 3-4 metres in heigh. With its mixture of salt and fresh water, this wetlands have become home to a vast number of fish and other waterlife. Many speices of birds which feed on them.
You meet to Mediterranean, after around 30-40 minutes wonderful boat travel. Dividing the delta is the İztuzu sandbar stretching for six km. With fine sand and turquoise sea.
Theses tombs are the resting places the kings of Caunos. They are carved in the style of Lycian rock tombs. There are two types of tomb to be found in Dalyan. Simple chambers, cut in to the rock face like a room and more elaborate temple tombs. Many tombs were built with false walls placing valuables behind them so as to fool robbers, eventually this was to no avail as all the tombs were emptied of their treasures.
Rock tombs can be seen along the Lycian coast, but best examples of them in Dalyan.
Dalyan has many therapeutic hot springs. The waters which contain radioactive elements and sulphur are believed to cure rheumatism, skin, liver, spleen and bowel complaints, as well as being beneficial for nervous and digestive disorders.
The Sultaniye Thermal Bath which is famous in Turkey, the water is 40 degrees C. The water used since Hellenistic times.
The mud baths are also said to remedy rheumatism as well as cleanse and beautify skin. Once you have covered yourself in the mud, than you wait for few minutes to dry it. You clean yourself in the sulphur pool. Mud bath is also at a temperature of 40 degrees.
The ancient city of Caunos grew on the border between Lycia and Caria. Caunos had a particular culture was an independent city state.
The city sprawls over a broad slope overlooking the sea and delta. At Caunos there is an Acropolis surrounded by the city walls, a theatre (which seats 1500 ), Four temples, an agora, shops, harbour, Roman bath and cistern, Some of ruins are still underground.
You can visit Caunos at any time. First you will have to cross the channel via a rowing boat, then 10 minutes walk to the city.
The Caretta Caretta turtle is designated as threatened on the Federal Fish and Wildlife Endangered Species List.These turtles with their large heads and reddish brown shells come to Iztuzu Beach to nest from May to September. They have yellowish to white undersides and can measure up to 3-4 feet in length. The turtle reaches maturity around 15 years of age, they can weigh between 150 and 300 pounds.
Adult turtles are meeting in lake of Dalyan Delta few weeks before the female lays her eggs. They are feeding before sex. Famela chooses a boyfriend. Their sex takes some hours and other turtles stays far away. You can hear their sounds.
The Caretta Caretta Turtle, returns to the beach where they themselves hatched. The adult female may lay several clutches each season, usually she will lay eggs every two-three years.
What’s LYCIA?
The ancient coastal region of southwest Turkey known as Lycia was bordered on all sides by massive mountain ranges, making it a uniquely independent state for much of its early history. The earliest inhabitants may have been native Anatolians mixed in with limited migrations from Crete.
Its proximity to Greece made it a desirable location for early colonists, but the Lycians resisted such attempts. In centuries of Greek domination of Asia Minor only one important colony, Phaselis, was ever established among the Lycians.
The Persians too sought to occupy the well defended territory but found Lycian independence deeply rooted in the culture. In the late 6th century BC, the Persians came to dominate Asia Minor and the surrounding vicinity but found Lycia to be a difficult conquest. When the Persians attacked the Lycian capital of Xanthos, the Lycians fought valiantly, but were eventually overcome. The survivors burnt the city, committing mass suicide, rather than submit to Persian rule.
Xanthos was later repopulated and Persian rule proved to be less dramatic than what was feared. Other than an annual tribute, the Lycians were left mainly to their own devices. Lycia was ruled essentially by a council of 23 federated cities, with certain more established cities having more clout than others.
The cities of Myra, Olympos Patara, Pinara, Tlos and Xanthos occupied the upper tier in Lycian politics. Under Persian ‘protection’ Lycia began to thrive and economic growth took hold. The Lycian alphabet also spread throughout the region in this time period.
WEDNESDAY
Lorenzo and I took a bus to go to Balıkesir from Istanbul. It took 6 hours to arrive. Lorenzo was playing with his iphone all the time so he took many ugly pics of me with it during the long boring bus travel. We planned to start our trip to Lycia next day so we had rest in the house of my parents in Balıkesir and we played with the kitten of my sister called Kekik.
THURSDAY
With my parents and my sister we started our trip at 10 am. On the road we saw very beautiful bays. I was getting more and more impatient to swim in the cold water of Egean Sea ( or Mediterranean.. lt’s just in the corner where two seas meet.) It was easy to observe the climate difference. The weather was veery hot. 7 hours later we were in our hotel in Fethiye. After dinner we strolled in the city center and we planned the next day.
l’ve done this today. lt’s about being so lonely in the crowd.. lt reflects my usual situation. l talk to so many people during the day but none of them understands me, none of them knows anything about me. There’s always a lonely feeling coz l know that when l talk noone listens to me.
Anzac Day is commemorated by Australia and New Zealand on 25 April every year to honour members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) who fought at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I.
In 1934, nineteen years after the 1915 landing, the first ANZAC veterans returned to Gallipoli. On them, on behalf of the Turkish nation President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk gave this message as soldier-statesman whose genius turned the Gallipoli campaign against the Allies, his famous words of reconciliation: … to Mothers who lost their sons at the Gallipoli Battle :
“Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives;
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.
Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side
here in this country of ours.
You, the mothers,
who sent their sons from far away countries,
wipe away your tears;
your sons are now lying in our bosom
and are in peace.
After having lost their lives on this land they have
become our sons as well.”
ATATURK 1934
“Extraordinary friendly exchanges between the Turks and our fellows this morning early.Some of our chaps ran right over to the enemy trenches and exchaged bully, jam, cigarettes etc. The whole business was wonderful and proves how madly unneccessary this part of the war is” Lt T.E Cozens,AIF,DIARY,19 October. Jonathan King 8. section page: 187.
“…. On 18 May when I was shot, there was a sniper Turkish girl. She was beautiful, huge and aged 19 or 20. Throughout the day, she continuously fired her gun. Although she shot many of us, I felt sorry when an Australian has shot her. As we have caught her dead body, we found a man’s body by her side.There were 52 bullets in her body. This war is horrible.”
” Between April 25 and December 20, 1915, in an area of 20 kilometres by 8, the following numbers of troops were killed:
86,000 Turkish 8,700 Australian 2,700 New Zealanders 27,000 British and Indian”
“While Turkish armies were fighting with British, Anzacs and the French at Gallipoli, they were also fighting the Russians in the Eastern front and British-Arab alliance in the south.
At a time when there were no young men left in Anatolian villages, Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire collaborated with the Russian invaders.. pillaging and murdering women and children in villages which were left defenseless after all men were conscripted to fight the enemies who were in a feeding frenzy – trying to devour what was left of the collapsing Ottoman Empire.
Armenians in border regions were thus deported to southern provinces and many perished during the arduous exodus.
Generations of Armenian militants later resorted to vicious terror tactics murdering numerous Turkish diplomats as revenge killings for an alleged genocide during the war years”
“ After the terrible punishment inflicted upon the brave but futile assaults all bitterness faded … The Turks displayed an admirable manliness … From that morning onwards the attitude of the Anzac troops towards the individual Turks was rather that of opponents in a friendly game.‘[ Charles. E Bean, the Australian official historian, The Story of Anzac, Vol II, Sydney, 1924, p.162 ]
Me and Lorenzo in front of the Turkish soldiers memorial in Gallipoli
PS : Sometimes l see that people search in google ” turkish anzac pics” and they visit my post. I just want to tell those people that turkish soldiers didnt even have shoes to wear in the war , how could they take pics of Anzacs?? The existing photos of the war and of Anzac soldiers were taken by anzacs themselves.
The Teahouse of the August Moon
My plan for today was waking up early and drawing my school project whole day. So in the morning l woke up early and I sat in front of PC for drawing… Then I received an unexpected sms from a friend of mine telling that she had an extra ticket for a theater play so she was wondering if I could join her. Of course I accepted immediately although I had tons of things to draw. We met in the pier, we got on the boat and we were in front of the theater building in half an hour.
I had no idea about the play so I let it be a surprise for me :
Okinawa Island…It’s a weird country which was occupied by Chinese first, then Japanese and finally Americans that it owes its fame to this bloody occupation which ended with 200.000 dead in April 1945…
The writer of the novel “The Teahouse of the August Moon” is one of the officers of the occupation army. Vern Sneider…and John Patric ,who’s also one of the officers of the occupation army , made a great comedy from this book.
It’s about the occupation mentality of USA. As they always do, also in Okinawa they’re far from evaluating the human factor, they are just ordered to apply the decisions which was taken on a desk in Washington with general logic. As they think that what is valid for them is valid for everyone in the world, the people of the island is forced to be shaped with “american life style “ model.
The aim of this approach is to destroy the differences of the other cultures and making them similar to american one. So the army builds schools to give their own culture to the island people. But one humanist man who was taken to the army by force because of the war, refuses to build a school and he builds a teahouse
.
Usually I don’t spend time in very touristical areas of Istanbul, I stroll around the historical districts which tours dont take tourists much. Nowadays I walk in the back streets of Uskudar a lot because of the project I am working on. I’m designing a little library next to a building which was an ottoman primary school some hundreds of years ago.
So I dont see many tourists. Only one or two very curious and courageous ones who are able to get a map and stroll alone. Today while I was going down the hill, I saw one climbing the hill with an Istanbul map in the hand and a stupid fes on the head. I couldn’t stop laughing… It wasn’t the only one with fes I have seen so far.Why do tourists wear those weird fes?? Don’t they feel stupid with it? Don’t they look around themselves and notice that noone in Turkey would wear it?
Sometimes the ignorance of the tourists amazes me. They have no idea about Ottoman Empire, Turkish republic , turkish culture, Istanbul, other cities of Turkey…So why are they in Istanbul? They usually go to Italy because it’s a kind of fashion, it seems even Istanbul becomes something like that. I hate this empty tourism. Like the shopkeeper who sells miniatures has told me once : ” Tourists don’t come to my shop to buy miniatures. I have only very special foreigner customers who understand miniature art. Usual tourists who come here aren’t different than gypsies towards art”
Like french, italian, english in Istanbul, like hundreds of americans I see in Florence whole summer or thousands of russians in Antalya…like milions of tourists who destroy , pollute and rape Venice each year more just for commercial reasons far from art, architecture and understanding.
P.S : I am a Turkish girl and I live in Istanbul. I wrote the details which disturb me personally about turkish people. It doesnt mean that every turkish is like I wrote, of course there’re always exceptions. This is just generalised criticism about turkish society. Maybe a tourist can’t notice these details.
Some of my Complaints ;
Yesterday cousin’s of Lorenzo came to visit us. Oh my…it was incredibly tiring day. They can’t spend more than 15 minutes playing with the same thing. They always try to discover new things at home. There’s 6 years old Tommaso always wants to drive our golf car in the garden, he hits furnitures trees…There’s 1 year old Emma strolling on the pavement, crying…Then there’s 3 years old Margherita always wants to do the same things which Tommaso does. Then she wants to see my jewellery bag, she wants to try everything inside it, she wants to make up, she wants me to give some of my jewellery to her as a present. ” mi regali questo?” ” Perche non mi regali questi?” And she asks always what’s that what’s this…and when you try to explain, she asks always why..” perche?” “perche?”
“why is this pillow fixed on the hummock?”
” Because it falls and Otto ( the dog) takes it away “
“Why does Otto take it away?”
” Because Otto wants to play”
“Why does Otto want to play?”
“Because……….uhm…..”
Margherita and Lorenzo playing with legos. Margherita says : ” Built a house for me” Lorenzo builts and asks ” How’s it?” She says : ” I dont like.” and it goes on like this. She always says: ” I dont like”
Otto steals pieces of lego and distroys them chewing
Emma and Otto =))
I have returned from Barcelona on Friday. I enjoyed each minute there.Leaving the city was very difficult for me because I completely felt in love with it. Barcelona is the city of my dreams because :
In Prato you can see chinese everywhere. They make many many kids so their population in Prato increases very fast. Italians arent happy about it. They are against them not because they are chinese but they dont like them because they dont respect the rules, they keep their society very closed and they dont speak italian.
Today there’s an article in BBC news about it :
In cities across Italy tension between the Chinese and Italians is high. The rapid influx of Chinese migrant workers and their dramatic impact on the labour market have caught Italy off guard – particularly in the northern industrial heartland.
Today Prato has the largest Chinese community in the country – about 25,000 people, nearly 15% of the city’s population.
And the authorities are worried.
“Many of the Chinese here are ‘clandestini’ – illegal. We have big difficulties catching them. And since they arrived, crime in the city has risen,” says Francesco Nannucci, the head of investigations at the Prato police.
The police patrol Prato’s Chinatown every day – an area full of Chinese shops, services and restaurants. Nearly all of them have sprung up in the last few years.
On one raid, ten undocumented Chinese workers were discovered in a side-street sweatshop, machine-sewing clothes.
There was a child present, beds, a bathroom and a kitchen. They slept, cooked, worked and brought up their children in this small warehouse.
Pronto moda
In the workshop at the back of the warehouse Cheng and his family toil away to produce these clothes in as short a time as possible, as cheaply as possible.
They can undercut the prices – and the wages – of their Italian counterparts. They may be paid as little as 2 euros an hour (£1.50), and 20 dresses might be produced for only 150 euros wholesale.
The clothes are bought by sellers from all over Italy and the rest of Europe.
Prato has become a main distribution centre for what is called “Pronto Moda” or “fast fashion”.
This is a Chinese invention: ‘ made in Italy’ goods produced under Chinese conditions.
Prato has also become a centre for the import of cheap clothing from China itself.
She’s in the bathroom after getting upset for several things…looking at herself in the mirror, watching her warm tears falling down from her red eyes…she’s looking at her hair…how long it got…She’s breathing irregularly…
It’s a small gloomy bathroom decorated in shades of brown…She cant believe how she finds peace there…she’s listening the silence, she hears only birds and a fly. She cries more when she thinks that she can find peace only in a miserable bathroom.
Then she looks in the mirror again remembering what her mom tells her…” dont let anyone to make you sad”…lt’s not easy…But she’s strong, she has always been so, she’ll always be…Everyone is selfish in this world so she needs to be strong and independent in every situation.
She leaves the bathroom …
Il romanticismo e’ dove ci sono emozioni forti come l’amore, la passione,l’odio,il dolore,la solitudine, la felicita…il romanticismo e’ nel momento che giaccio sull’amaca nel giardino tra le braccia del mio amore quando guardiamo le stelle. E’ nel momento che siedo sul muretto del ponte di Charles sotto la pioggia a Praga. Il romanticismo e’ nel momento che sento il vento di Bosforo sulla mia faccia…E’ a lstanbul, a Roma, a Parigi…e’ nella mia lacrima, e’ nel mio sorriso.
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